


Green Scrubs

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Holding [19]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Developing Relationship, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, No Angst, Not Hockey Players (Hockey RPF), They're Bruins fans though so it's okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 01:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18906316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: Pasta rearranges the ceiling lights over the procedure table because he’s taller while Brad puts the linens onto it. “Hey, speaking of dates…”Brad groans. “No, Pasta, no more blind dates. Nothing against your friends but literally none of them are my type so far… and why do you have so many gay friends anyway?”“I just have lots of friends, some of them are gay,” Pasta shrugs. “No, I was going to ask what’s up with you and that cute doctor you’re always talking to…”





	Green Scrubs

**Author's Note:**

> I said I was going to stop writing and then I wrote this. I'm pathetic.

Brad checks his watch: another hour and a half until he can go home. Which would be fine, normally, considering “home” is an empty apartment with a busted Xbox he hasn’t had time to replace yet, except his workload tonight was lighter than usual so he’s already almost done.

“I’m gonna get coffee in a minute,” Pasta comments as they shove all the equipment back into place around the room.

“It’s ten at night, bro.”

“Yeah, but I got a date,” his coworker grins. “She works until midnight, so I go wait for half an hour and then we’re going out.”

“Oh, yeah that makes sense. Where’re you going?”

“There’s a bowling alley at the mall, it’s open until two in the morning and has alcohol.”

“Fun. Do you know how to bowl?”

“No,” Pasta admits after a second, “but if I screw up it’s cute and then she’ll like me, right?”

“Only if you do it right,” Brad chuckles. “You’re a ray of sunshine anyway, she’ll like you.”

“Thanks, man.” Pasta rearranges the ceiling lights over the procedure table because he’s taller while Brad puts the linens onto it. “Hey, speaking of dates…”

Brad groans. “No, Pasta, no more blind dates. Nothing against your friends but literally none of them are my type so far… and why do you have so many gay friends anyway?”

“I just have lots of friends, some of them are gay,” Pasta shrugs. “No, I was going to ask what’s up with you and that cute doctor you’re always talking to…”

“Oh, Bergy? He’s not interested in me. He could have any guy he wants, even the straight ones… and I’m pretty sure he’s straight himself, so it doesn’t matter.”

“He’s not,” Pasta argues. “I heard him say something to Z once about an ex-husband.”

“Okay, first of all, why are you eavesdropping on the OR director talking to one of his surgeons?” Brad snorts. “Second, like I said, Bergy could have anyone he wants. I’m short, ugly and annoying.”

“Marchy, you’re not that ugly,” his friend protests as they leave the finished OR and go into the hall. “You’re… uh… distinct-looking, or something. Hey, I got teeth like this and girls still go after me, so ugly isn’t really as much of a thing as people think, right?”

“My nose takes up my whole face,” Brad laughs. “All you have to do is keep your mouth closed. And you forgot the short and annoying parts.”

“You have lots of personality,” Pasta decides. “Also, I had short girlfriends before. It’s nice for hugs and snuggles, then your head can fit under his chin perfectly and you fit right together like a puzzle.”

They run through some mundane things, checking to make sure enough towels and pillows and linens are stocked, then looking at the amount of soap and sponges left in the sub-sterile cleanrooms, and finally disposable supplies like chucks and the non-sterile boxes of gloves. They could start mopping the walls in the hall outside the ORs, but if Brad’s going to do that then he needs a snack first.

“Here, let’s take a quick break, you can have your coffee,” Brad decides.

They go into the outer hall, where the break area and staff locker rooms are. Brad heads in and shucks his shoe covers and hair net without looking, so he gets startled when he realizes there’s somebody sitting at the table. Dark hair, stubble, lab coat over green scrubs… Dr. Patrice Bergeron is doing paperwork at the table.

“Long night, Bergy?” Brad asks, grabbing his orange Vitamin Water from the fridge.

“Huh?” Patrice raises his head. “Oh. Hey, Marchy. I forgot you guys work so late.”

“Here ’til eleven thirty,” Brad shrugs. “Wish I could go home, though. I got like nothing to do right now.”

Patrice nods. “That’s too bad.” Then he looks hesitant about something. “Hey, are you off tomorrow?”

“Yeah, they have per diems and part-timers to work on weekends, why?”

“I was going to go out with an old school friend but she had to cancel because her kids are sick, and… I have an extra ticket to the game against the Isles, so I thought maybe you’d want to go with me.”

Brad is floored. Everything he said to Pasta a few minutes ago are echoes of his denial, because he actually has a thing for the quiet, gorgeous man sitting at that table over there. And now that quiet, gorgeous man has asked to spend time together outside work.

“Yeah, sure! I’d love to go with you,” he answers, because as always his brain doesn’t catch up with his mouth in time to stop it.

Patrice offers what’s probably his best smile in response. “Great! Do you want me to pick you up, or should we just meet at the Garden?”

“You can pick me up,” Brad grins, purposefully suggestive about it in his tone.

It seems to go over Patrice’s head, though, because he just keeps smiling and asks for Brad’s address. Brad’s really glad they’re technically in different departments, because if this actually does turn out to be a date it can’t be called cronyism by outside observers. Patrice is a surgeon and Brad’s part of building services, which means that Patrice isn’t Brad’s boss so there isn’t technically anything unprofessional about this. And even if there was, management can kiss Brad’s ass.

* * *

Brad tries not to be too obsessive as he stands in front of the mirror. He fails spectacularly.

What the fuck is it with him right now? Patrice _never said this is a date,_ but Brad’s losing his shit - he can’t help feeling like it is. Because although sports games are a great place to be loud and annoying, he knows he’s loud and annoying anyway and he’s _extra_ loud and annoying when it comes to the Bruins. He really should’ve gotten a haircut last week when he was thinking of it instead of blowing it off to hang out with his friends at a club on a spur of the moment. Also, what the fuck is up with hockey jerseys? He’s somehow never noticed before just how fucking unsexy they are on him - baggy and loose, comfortable, but in no way showing off how much he works out. Maybe if he actually was a hockey player and not just a fan they’d look better on him, or something.

Ultimately, Brad goes for the customized away jersey with his name and the number he wore when he played as a kid and hides his stupid hair under a cap with the team crest. It reminds him of one of the first conversations he had with Patrice, bonding over hockey because Patrice also played all the way through high school.

He reaches under the jersey and his tee to apply the nice, expensive deodorant that he went out and bought first thing this morning and three seconds after he’s finished there’s a round of polite knocks on his apartment door. Brad runs over and there’s Patrice, who somehow looks sexy in an unsexy hockey jersey with Bobby Orr’s name and number and has a worn-down 2011 Stanley Cup Champions baseball cap tragically covering his beautiful hair. They’re dressed all but identically and of course Patrice pulls it off flawlessly where Brad looks like any generic gross hockey fan.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Brad grins, grabbing his wallet and keys from the counter.

The traffic sucks, so it’s almost a forty minute drive into Boston, but they make it to TD Garden with plenty of time before the game starts. They get beers and food before finding their seats, and Brad’s so glad he’s on a non-date with a rich doctor because they’re in the row directly behind the Bruins’ bench.

“So how come you were still at work last night, man?” he asks before cracking his beer.

“Oh, there was a staff meeting that ran really late and I had some paperwork to catch up on after,” Patrice answers. “It was no big deal, there was just… a lot more of it than I realized at first. I was pretty much sitting in my office from six to ten, and then I just couldn’t listen to the clock in there anymore so I went to the break room.”

“Is there something wrong with your clock?”

“Yeah, it makes this weird grinding noise. It’s really quiet but after awhile it starts to get to me.”

“Huh. That sucks.”

“Just a little bit, yeah.” Patrice takes a sip of beer. “I really like your jersey.”

“Oh, thanks, it was a Christmas present from my brother. We all went to the first game after New Years’ together with custom jerseys, each one a different number, right? This is the number I had when I was in school, but everyone else’s was just their age at the time,” Brad chuckles. “It probably ran him like a thousand dollars for six custom jerseys, but it was pretty cool.”

Patrice smiles. “It sounds like you have a really nice family.”

“They’re pretty good most of the time, yeah,” Brad nods. He decides to fish a little. “Everyone was great when I came out and everything, too… I was scared as hell, but I told my dad first and he was like, ‘yup.’ Then he just gave me the most sarcastic look he could and went, ‘oh, wait, I’m _supposed_ to be _surprised!_ ’”

Patrice bursts out laughing and almost dumps his chips bending over in his chair. Brad grabs his beer and his food for him until it subsides. “That’s the best coming out story I’ve ever heard,” Patrice giggles as he takes everything back. “Oh, man. That’s-that’s so perfect, Marchy.”

“Yeah, I mean… most of the people in my life were pretty cool about it.”

“How old were you?”

“Fifteen. I figured it out because one of my team mates pulled me away after a game before we went into the locker room and kissed me in a corner. I got a hat trick in that game and he was, like, super turned on by that I guess.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. He was cute, too, but then he moved away a couple months later.”

“I was twelve when I knew, but I didn’t tell my family until I was eighteen,” Patrice confesses. “It’s one of those things, where… it turned out I had nothing to worry about, but I didn’t know that. My mom was way more mad that I didn’t trust her than she was about me being gay. It made my dad kind of anxious, though, because of… well, because of AIDS. So he sat me down as soon as I told him and talked to me for almost two hours about the right way to use condoms. My brother had a similar reaction to your dad, he just said something about how he figured as much.”

Brad snickers. “Brothers are great for that, aren’t they? Finding out shit before you do but not telling you about it.”

Patrice laughs. It’s like music and it also seems to Brad like Patrice laughs a lot. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

They watch the Bruins do warm-ups, flipping pucks over the glass every so often to be caught by the kids gathered there. Briefly, Brad imagines himself doing that, if he’d gotten a scholarship and done hockey in college so that maybe by now he’d have been in the NHL himself. He knows he’d do that, too, because he loves kids. It’s really too bad he hasn’t found the right guy yet because he wants to have some himself, but being a single dad on his income would be too difficult. It could be done, technically, but he doesn’t think he’d be able to give his son or daughter the quality of life they’d deserve.

“They’re so cute, aren’t they?” Patrice muses, apparently on a similar train of thought to the one Brad was just having.

“What, the kids?”

“Yeah… it makes me miss my stepson,” he admits. “I didn’t have joint custody when I was married to Andrew because I didn’t think it would be an issue, but then we got divorced a few years ago. Bryce is a great kid, too. I loved him like he was mine.”

“That’s too bad,” Brad agrees. “So you don’t have any…?”

“No. Maybe someday, but by myself I’m too busy. If there’s an emergency I could be called in and then my hours get crazy, there’d be nobody to stay with them if I had to leave in a hurry. It’s okay, though, my brother has a daughter, I get to see her once a month.”

 _I can stay home and take care of the kids,_ Brad thinks, but thank god he manages to keep that one in.

Their attention gets sucked into hockey very shortly after that. It’s a good game, too, a goal by each team in the 1st, a Bruins goal in the 2nd, then an Isles goal in the 3rd leading to a sudden death overtime win for Boston. Calm, quiet Patrice is jumping up and down screaming just as loudly as Brad is when it happens.

“That was great,” Patrice smiles as they’re leaving. “It’s so much better in person than on tv… thanks for coming with me, Marchy.”

“Thanks for having me,” Brad grins back. He slaps Patrice lightly on the shoulder. “Any time you got extra tickets, count me in, man.”

* * *

On Monday afternoon, Brad shows up for work half an hour before his shift starts like always and heads to the surgical department to change. As he’s pulling on the light blue scrubs, Pasta waltzes in and drops his backpack.

“So how was your date with the cute doctor?” he asks, grinning shamelessly.

“It wasn’t a date, dude,” Brad answers, rolling his eyes as he does up the ties on his pants. “We went and saw a hockey game. It was like, the most non-date thing ever.”

“Bro, who do you think you are lying to, here?” Pasta demands, still smiling way too widely. “We’re in this OR together for the last four years, and every time you see that guy you start drooling. Then finally he starts talking to you and now you drool even more. Now he takes you on dates. It’s a natural progression. Also, he drools when he looks at you, too.”

“No he doesn’t,” Brad scoffs. There’s no way in _hell_ someone as perfect as Patrice Bergeron is interested in him. “Like I said, hockey game. The most non-date of all non-date things. Seriously, would you take someone to a sports game on a date?”

“Well… if I was trying to date you, I would,” Pasta answers. It’s somehow worse that he’s completely serious when he says it.

“You’re awful and I hate you,” Brad answers, but he doesn’t really mean it.

“Marchy, why won’t you just tell the cute doctor that you like him? He so obviously likes you back,” Pasta urges, by now also dressed.

“He has a name, you know. And no, he doesn’t like me back.”

They cover their shoes and hair, then swipe their badges to clock in and head into the OR hall to gather up their stuff.

“So are we in high school or something?” Pasta asks. “Because this is how teenage girls talk to each other. ‘He doesn’t like me!’ He does like you, Marchy. Go find Cute Doctor on our lunch and tell him you like him.”

“I actually have to go do something during lunch,” Brad answers as they fill up the bucket with Oxivir and start piling mop pads into it.

“Oh yeah? What?”

“Not your problem. I just have to run an errand.”

They whip through the first two ORs like always, then take lunch at five. Brad gets his Subway sandwich out of the fridge and throws away his shoe covers and hair net, then ducks into the locker room to grab something and leaves the outer hall altogether. He takes the elevator up to the second floor and nervously goes down the hallway, looking at the names on the doors until he comes to **PATRICE BERGERON, MD**. It’s open most of the way, but Patrice’s desk faces the window instead, so when Brad knocks he startles.

“Yes? Oh, hi Marchy.”

“Hey. Uh… wow, yeah, I can hear it,” he comments, looking at the clock.

“Yeah, I need to get rid of that thing…” Patrice makes a face, then smiles at Brad. “So, you’re probably here for a reason, right?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I, uh, I actually came about the clock.”

Patrice chuckles. “I didn’t know building services did clocks.”

“You can just call me a janitor, Bergy, it’s what I am,” Brad snorts. “No, I don’t fix those. But for some reason - so I found this in a pile of stuff at home, I’m not sure why I have an extra one but I never even opened it.” He hands over a digital alarm clock, still in the box. “This one won’t grind, either.”

Patrice’s answering smile as he accepts the clock could put the sun to shame, and it’s really unfair because he’s not in scrubs, either - under his lab coat is a button shirt and a tie. Apparently he didn’t have any procedures today, so he’s dressed nicely and his hair is even more perfect than usual. Is this man just always gorgeous?

“This is really nice, Marchy, thank you.”

“It’s nothing,” Brad shrugs. Then Pasta jumps into his head: _why don’t you just tell the cute doctor that you like him?_ “So I had a lot of fun this weekend, do you want to hang out again sometime?”

“Absolutely… oh, I can’t this weekend, though, I’m visiting my family. But… do you always take lunch at five?”

“Yeah, usually.”

“Okay, if I’m not busy I’ll come eat dinner with you tomorrow. Here-” He moves a box of files off a chair. “You can sit and eat since you’re here already.”

“Cool, thanks.” Brad drops into the seat and tries not to inhale his sandwich. “So you think they’ll make the playoffs this season?”

“It’s only November,” Patrice laughs. “But I hope so. Have you ever been to a playoff game? They’re _insane._ And then there’s no fans from the other team to put up with.”

“It’s too expensive,” Brad answers. “I’ve only been to regular season games.”

“Well, then if they make it, I’m going to take you to one,” Patrice decides.

Even though Brad’s pretty sure Patrice is supposed to be doing paperwork right now, they chat about stupid things until Brad’s lunch break is up. “Shit, I gotta run… so I’ll see you tomorrow I guess?”

“Yeah, hopefully. I’ll try to make sure there’s no emergency procedures during your break,” Patrice jokes.

Brad laughs. “Yeah, okay. See you, Bergy.”

Getting back into the surgical department, Pasta is all over him. “You took your food with you, did you go see your _boyfriend?_ ”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Brad snaps. “And yes.”

“I knew it!” his friend crows as they get started on the third room. “Also, you forgot ‘yet.’ He’s not your boyfriend _yet._ ”

“You’re literally the worst sometimes, Pasta.”

* * *

Over the next couple of weeks, it somehow becomes a habit for Patrice to eat dinner with Brad. (Mercifully, Pasta always holds in the teasing until Patrice has gone back to his office.) Then, Wednesday of the third week, it doesn’t happen. Brad tries as hard as he can not to sulk, because he’s not a child and he has no right. Plus Patrice’s job is much more important, so whatever reason there is, it’s probably a good one.

“Maybe he’s just late,” Pasta offers as they sit and Brad chokes down his leftovers.

“Yeah, maybe.”

He gets up from the table and puts on a fresh hair net and shoe covers, and when he goes into the hall it’s just in time to witness a group of nurses wheeling a patient out of OR 3. The doctor pulling off his procedure mask is, of course, Patrice, who finishes telling something to one of the nurses before spotting Brad, smiling, and coming right over.

“Hey, sorry I missed your lunch…”

“Nah, it’s okay, you were busy,” Brad shrugs. (Secretly, he’s relieved, because it was a good reason after all. Patients come first, always.) “Have fun?”

“Oh, yeah, I got to blow off dinner for an appendicitis,” Patrice answers with a rare eye-roll. Then he’s smiling again. “Here, let’s do something this weekend so I can make it up to you.”

Brad’s kind of surprised. “You don’t like, owe me anything, Bergy. It’s okay.”

“No, I want to,” Patrice gently insists. “Do you still skate? We can go to the rink.”

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Brad agrees. “I think my skates need to be sharpened, though.”

“That’s okay, I’ll pay for it. Or… I think there’s a game on Sunday, we can go see it together.”

Brad has to think about that one for a second - either way he gets to spend time with this guy that he really likes, on what by now seems like it pretty much would be a date. So the choice is between lazily doing laps around a public rink, talking the whole time probably, or something loud and exciting that reminds them both of being children. “Uh…”

And Patrice is still smiling. “Or we can do both,” he offers, a little quieter, almost shy.

He doesn’t have to pick one…? Oh, right. Patrice makes a lot more money than he does. “Yeah, yeah both is good. That works for me.”

“Great,” Patrice nods. “Ugh, I have to go do patient charts and stuff… you can swing by my office on your next break if you want, I’ll probably still be here.”

“Okay, I will.” He watches Patrice disappear into the outer hall and then Pasta comes over, grinning smugly. “Don’t even fucking say anything, man.”

“I don’t have to,” his friend cackles before they get back to work.

* * *

The surgical department has a Christmas party which takes place the week before Christmas, and even though Brad and Pasta aren’t actually part of that department, they’re still invited because that’s their work area. The surgeons are all in their green scrubs, the nurses and building services workers are in blue; it makes it easy for Brad to find Patrice in the crowded break area. Patrice spots Brad too, and immediately excuses himself from whatever conversation he’s in to come over with his usual lovely smile.

“Hey, I saved you a cupcake…” Patrice holds it out for him. “I’m glad you came.”

“Of course I came, you think I’d pass up free cupcakes?” Brad jokes, accepting the small paper plate. It’s not true, though; he’s here for Patrice. Brad could give a shit about cupcakes. “So what are you doing for the holidays?”

“Heading to Quebec to see my parents. You?”

“Same, but Halifax.”

Patrice nods. There’s a strange undertone to his expression, but it’s not unpleasant. “Can we go talk someplace quiet for a second?”

“Yeah, sure.” It’s vaguely reminiscent of that moment in tenth grade, except this time he’s being taken into a locker room instead of staying out of one. “So what’s up?”

“Brad, I want you to know that I really like you,” Patrice starts. “We’ve been hanging out and doing things together for a few weeks now, and the last few times I’ve started automatically calling them ‘dates’ in my head. It would be really nice if I can go home to my family next week and tell them about my new boyfriend… is that okay with you?”

Brad can’t stop himself from gawking for a second. Because, yeah, he’s been calling it dates in his head this whole time too, but somehow he didn’t expect this. It never occurred to him that Patrice is as interested in him as he is in Patrice, even with Patrice going out of his way to get Bruins tickets for them that one time. It’s just ridiculous that this beautiful man picked _him._

“Bergy I’m gonna be honest, I couldn’t _be_ more okay with that,” Brad laughs. “Won’t they be disappointed in you dating a janitor, though?”

“You sterilize my operating rooms… any speck of dust could get into a wound, cause an infection, and kill a patient. Your job is every bit as important as mine, Marchy. Without you doing your job, I can’t do my job. If anyone ever gets disappointed, that’s what I’ll tell them.”

Fuck, that’s flattering. Brad lets a huge grin break onto his face. “That’s literally so perfect that nobody but you could come up with it. Yes, Patrice, I’ll be your boyfriend.”

Patrice’s smile has notes of relief in it. (How could be think Brad wouldn’t be alright with this?) “Thank you.”

It’s impossible for Brad to wrap his head around the fact that Patrice is the one grateful to him right now. So instead of trying to find clumsy words that won’t say quite what he wants to express, Brad reaches out to lead Patrice closer by his hands, giving him plenty of time to lean away if he wants, and then kisses him. Patrice tastes like cupcake frosting and mint hot chocolate; he smells like surgical antiseptic and the synthetic rubber those sterile gloves are made out of; his mouth is soft and his stubble is just the right balance between prickly and fuzzy. He’s perfect… and now he’s Brad’s. (Brad has been his this whole time.)

**Author's Note:**

> So, a few things.
> 
> First, Brad's coming out story here is exactly how it happened for me. That is literally what my dad said when I came out :D
> 
> Second, I wasn't going to put this up but then a wonderful person on Tumblr wrote some very nice things to me and that changed my mind. (At the time I'm posting this fic I don't know your AO3 account or I would gift it to you, but if you're reading this, you probably know who you are, once again thank you so much).
> 
> Third, I used to work in a hospital sterilizing operating rooms, which is why I picked this for Brad (because of exactly the reason Patrice gave for why Brad's job is important). It seemed perfectly symbiotic, that Brad thinks Patrice is more important than him but Patrice can't be nearly as affective at what he does without Brad there just like on the ice in real life.
> 
> Now for god's sake people, please leave me some damn comments for once, I'm very discouraged as a writer and I really need it. (Especially since I wasn't even going to post this in the first place.)


End file.
